Sometimes, while you’re watching a movie, you get a strong feeling that you’ve seen this before somewhere but can’t just put a finger on it.
That might be because you have, sort of. There are so many movies being produced today that it’s become really hard to come up with something original. Sometimes, screenwriters just give up and plagiarize other movies and maybe change a thing or two. Join our plagiarism debate.
In this article, we’ll take a look at 10 movies which plagiarized other movies.Disturbia
No 1 on our list is the 2007 detective movie starring Shia LaBeouf. It might come as a surprise to some but the movie was sued because of its suspicious similarities to a short story by Cornell Woolrich known as It Had To Be Murder released in 1942.
Both had almost the same plot with only a few minor plot details to separate the two.
A Fistful Of Dollars
This is yet another movie which ripped off a Japanese movie by Akira Kurosawa known as Yojimbo.
After Akira saw the movie, A Fist Full of Dollars, he immediately contacted the director saying it was his movie. He later received an out-of-court settlement.
Lilo and Stitch
While it wasn’t the whole movie that was a plagiarized version of another movie, a very important part of it was downright stolen.
The character Stitch was stolen from a comic from 1987 called Sam and Max by Steve Purcell.
Max was the character which Stitch was based on. Worse of all, it was done without the permission of Steve Purcell.
Ice age
Ice Age was a blockbuster animated movie from 2002 which made a whopping 43 million dollars on its opening weekend alone. Too bad none of it went to Ivy Silberstein.
The little squirrel who is always obsessed with a nut was actually based off a trademarked character by Ivy known as Sqrat. She pitched the character to Fox but was unsuccessful.
Imagine her surprise when she saw her own character in a movie she got nothing from.
Well played Fox, well played.
Titanic
The huge mega-blockbuster from 1997 is actually contains scenes that were blatantly ripped off from another familiar movie you might know as Aladdin (1992).
Several scenes actually contain identical lines and imagery from the cartoon.
No lawsuits were filed though.
Tango and Cash
The action-thriller featuring Sylvester “Rambo” Stallone and Kurt Russel was a shameless plagiarism of the movie Police Story starring Jackie Chan.
Both movies feature an extremely similar plot and scenes which were downright stolen from Police Story.
No wonder Stallone is sometimes called “Sly”. That was some sly handiwork right there.
Ted
Who doesn’t love the foul-mouthed, crack-smoking, adorable teddy bear from the movie Ted? Too bad he wasn’t original.
Ted is actually a rehashed character from a cartoon strip by Lucan Turnbloom known as Clovis the talking bear.
Both teddy bears are identical to the point of them being addicted to alcohol. It couldn’t be clearer.
Family Guy
You never would have guessed that Family Guy’s Stewie Griffin is actually a plagiarized character.
Years before Family Guy came to life, a character extremely similar to Stewie had already been existing in Chris Ware’s novels.
Simple case of stolen character right here. Whether Chris sued and got his share of the cake is unknown to me.
Batman (2008)
Yes. Even Batman is not above plagiarism. You might remember a scene from the movie where the lines: “This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object”.
That sounds like some original writing from the screenwriters. Except that something very similar was mentioned in the movie, Kickboxer 2 in 1991.
It seems we can’t even trust Batman anymore.
Back to the Future
This might not be considered plagiarism but it damn near foots the bill. A similar plot which is: a mad scientist constructs a breakfast-making machine to feel fulfilled, was first introduced in 1967 by a movie called Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
You’ll notice that exact plot in the original Back to the Future movie. Although, several other movies such as Honey, I blew up the kids, The Wrong Trousers, etc. are guilty of the exact same thing.
This article was written by Edusson community.
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